Dev Log #48 - Second day finishing strong!

Hi all! Welcome back to another dev log! I do have a few things to share before I inevitably head back to the development of the game, so let's get started!

Hectic week
It was quite a busy week both in my outside work as well as in the development of Episode 2. With 2023 closing out relatively soon, I do plan to make adjustments to time limitations in order to focus more on the development of Cara in Creekmaw. I will have more news on that when the time comes!

Entering a sensible development workflow!
One thing that I mentioned in the pre-production phases of Episode 2 was how I would be more focused on developing the actual story and dialogues BEFORE the renders come into the picture (literally).

With the new hardware churning out satisfying renders at a high speed (and also being its own entire system), I'm able to focus and properly write the dialogue for each scene before the renders themselves are developed!

So, did the workflow translate into anything?
Why, yes! Just this past week alone, the entirety of the second day's dialogue has been written and I'm on course to start writing the dialogue for the third day. This past week, over 1500 lines of new dialogue which puts it just slightly ahead of the rendering plans.

Speaking of rendering, with a multi-choice scene playing out on the second day, there has been an additional workload for the rendering of the second day. Whereas in previous releases, your choices typically resulted in seeing/not seeing certain scenes, this multi-choice results in three completely different scenes that occur in the same time span. These scenes are all... particularly naughty in their own ways, aiming to deliver three completely different sides to Cara and her chosen character!

I aim to have the renders of these (and the rest) of the second day ready by the end of the weekend, and will then focus on the development of the third day!

Story-wise, there has been a big re-shuffling and re-arranging of key events, with the aim of creating a more cohesive story experience. Generally, these are scenes that do not have dialogue written for them (i.e. beginning scenes and recently written scenes are all in their fixed positions). I will be doing this re-arranging as needed as the dialogue for the third day begins to develop!

------------------------------------------- PROGRESS BREAKDOWN -------------------------------
Story: 95% done. Big re-shuffling and re-arranging, but key events stay the same.

Renders: 25% done. Finish up on multi-scene renders by this weekend, so it is slightly delayed in this area. Up 2.5% from last week.

Dialogue: 25% done. Day 2 dialogue is largely written (about 90%) and dialogue for smaller scenes in days beyond Day 2 has been drafted. Up 12.5% from last week.

Gameplay: 25% done. No change.
------------------------------------------- END OF BREAKDOWN ----------------------------------

To conclude, things are pretty much going full speed and as fast as possible. I'm still picking up from my slack from the few months of slow development, but it is something I'll need to continue picking up on as the middle of September approaches.

Stay safe and healthy!